Lol it’s just a weird thing to get hung up on is all. Just because somebody supports a small business over a mega corp doesn’t mean they are thrilled with capitalism.

No one but you suggested that was happening?

Seems like a made up issue to talk about hating a system when there’s more than enough real or impactful issues, I didn’t mean to hurt so many feelings.

Conservatives constantly use small businesses as a front to pass the fiscal policies that you are alluding to. I can’t even count the number of times a conservative politician has used the phrase “small businesses are the backbone of America”

Also, the only person who seems too emotional is you.

didn’t know groups of liberals talking about small business was affecting so many people in the country so deeply

Wut?

Someone is being a little sensitive today… What’s got you so touchy about the subject? You own a failing small business or something?

Do you think supporting small business is a left aligned practice and you just need to let people know how much hate you have available?

Ahh yes, supporting le petit bourgeoisie and their dreams to become a small business tyrant … Totally a central tenet of socialist theory.

The problem with small business owners is that they overwhelmingly support the conservative machine because the actual upper class throw them bones to use them as a political buffer between themselves and the working class.

The simple fact is that most small businesses are dependent on tax breaks and low minimum wages to stay in business, and are often worse and more dangerous places to be employed than larger corporations.

I worked with a dude when I was in college that used to buy broken TVs on eBay and swap out the guts, return them, and then sell the TVs to people on eBay.

He was banned from a couple Walmarts around town because they caught on to what he was doing, but couldn’t actually prove he was doing fraud because we would also remove and re-solder the internal serial numbers back on the returned tv.

The saddest thing about the history of Christianity is just how juxtaposed it is to the actual theology contained in the new testament. Anytime in history a movement actually starts to apply the actual lessons of Christianity they seem to get hunted down by their fellow Christians.

My dad’s side of the family got kicked out of Europe towards the end of the bohemian reformation, and then got kicked out of colonial georgia for accepting slaves and native Americans into the church.

It’s still not as effective as the current means. Plus, this would only hypothetically work on conduit that doesn’t elevate or go vertical. It’s cheaper and faster to just apply a shop vacuum to the conduit and suck a ball with a line through.

Yeah… People were skanking while shouting Jesus is king. It was a wildly unpleasant dream. I haven’t even heard a ska song in years, let alone something as specific as the mighty mighty bosstones. I had to look them up this morning just to make sure my brain didn’t fully hallucinate their existence. It was the most vivid dream I’ve had in a long time.

Well, I had a dream last night where my family never moved out of florida. Instead my dad remarried a lady in an ultra conservative Cuban family and they made me go to a Mighty Mighty Bosstones concert. Except in this timeline they turned into an evangelical Christian ska band.

It essentially has the same issue. How many scenarios can we think of that need something that can crawl into rubble or explore irregular caves, but without the ability to climb? It’s what happens when a design’s aesthetic is developed before its function.

When aesthetics is the selling point of an engineering project then the aesthetics is its purpose. In this case it’s to advertise a university’s research department.

Right, but my point is that you are still being forced. The legal definition of force isn’t someone successfully gets you to do the thing they wanted to, it’s being coerced via the threat of violence or imprisonment.

Even if you decide to frag your commander, your life is still being endangered. Also, what you are advocating is a lot easier to say than do. Lower enlisted conscripts during unpopular wars develop a pretty strong bond because there is a lack of choice. No one wants to be there and no one really wants to die, or see their buddies get meaninglessly killed.

Militaries who regularly employ conscripted forces know how to control and manipulate there conscripts into doing their jobs, even when they really don’t want to. If you want some pretty horrific accounts of this you can read about Russian conscription during the days of the Romanov empire.

Tbh they probably did, there’s likely more profit in it as a luxury sex toy than in prosthetics or manufacturing.

I work in prosthetics and have seen a couple of tentacle-like terminal end devices made over the years, but they all fail to truly be useful for anything.

They fall into the category of being not efficient enough for specific or universal uses. For something like manufacturing they aren’t as efficient as building a specific tool for a specific purpose, and for something like a prosthetic they aren’t useful enough to overcome the fact that most things we interact with everyday are made to work with something in the shape of a hand.

So an expensive space dildo is likely the most profitable option if they can bring it to market at an achievable price. But honestly, most of these things are mainly created as an eye grabbing marketing scheme for some universities research department.

I mean, conscription is basically forcing people to go to war through the threat of violence. There are plenty of modern examples of people either being forced to go to war or to be imprisoned or killed.

I get the general idea that you still ultimately have a choice to make, but a choice between serving or being imprisoned or worse still implies coercion.

The brain damage hasn’t helped, but Fetterman has always been a conservative cosplaying as a working class union guy. His father is the CEO of an insurance agency, a big Republican donor, and he bankrolled Fettermans political career.

If you actually look into his history in government his behavior has been very consistent throughout his career. Pretty much anyone who works with him will always report that he’s an erasable contrarian and is very lazy. Even as Lt gov he barely showed up to preside over the state Senate which was mandatory, and his official schedule was empty 1/3 of the time. Even when he did decide to work, he averaged a 4-5 hour day.

That was kinda my point about absolute equality. There will always be people with disabilities and therefore absolute equity and absolute meritocracies are mostly utopian philosophical concepts. Plus, if we’re doing idealist delights why bother with anything but luxury space communism?

Yes? I’m even friends with several queer people…shocking as that may be.

I even know a few conservative leaning gay dudes, our gay district has a gaybar specifically for cowboys. Even they don’t hate or discriminate against flamboyant gay men. They might not seek their company or want anything to do with that particular scene, but they are still neighborly.

disclaimed explicitly that I don’t believe that speakers who use the phrase “toxic masculinity” believe that masculinity per se is toxic

And did I accuse you of doing so?

while I was writing, somebody else left a comment that does indeed interpret it that way.

Yes, lemmy has a pretty established history of harboring a lot of misogynistic users which do not reflect the thoughts of everyday normal people.

I don’t think we should be moderating our own behavior to satisfy people acting in bad faith or to the temper of bigots.

Imo an absolute meritocracy would first require a society of absolute equity. Otherwise how would you know if someone is actually more inherently better at something or if they just had more opportunity?

I think meritocracies are a nice idea, but they’ve mostly been supported by societal elites throughout history because they know it’s easy to score when you’re born on third base.

How did I misconstrue your statement?

But let’s not give 'em a head start by using words that consistently turn off our audience, eh? In my experience, “privilege” and “toxic masculinity” do just that.

Because the well funded rightwing think tanks have already tarred them…

people using “evil homosexuals” don’t need to add the “evil,” because they’re bigots who believe that homosexuality is evil. Likewise, the people who use “toxic masculinity” don’t need to add the “toxic,” because they’re bigots who believe that masculinity is toxic.

I use toxic masculinity and I don’t think masculinity is inherently toxic?

And I don’t think a significant amount of people think masculinity by itself is toxic by itself. Otherwise everyone would be force femming their husbands, or hating any trans men choosing to express themselves.

The only people who seem to be interpreting toxic masculinity as an implication of masculinity as a whole are people who seem to think all maledom is under siege.

“Aren’t big fans” is not the same as being bigoted, or discriminating against…

Do think there are some Lincoln Republic gays out their thinking Tommy is going to hell, not because he’s queer, but because he sashays too hard?